Tychy earns first points

Herning and Tychy open the Continental Cup Superfinals in Rouen hunting for three important points to boost the morale and put pressure on Rouen and Asiago, on the ice tonight. Danish team begins aggressively attacking the cage protected by Stefan Zigardy: Steffen Frank hits the bar after a minute, while Herning goalie Simon Nilsen has to face three difficult saves around minute 10 on Kalinowski and Kolusz, both after Danish mistakes while getting out the defensive zone. The quick American forward Jordan George causes problems to Tychy defends and goalie Zigardy is called to a couple of difficult saves. At minute 15 Kolusz wastes a good chance shooting on Nielsen pads, while a mistake by Sokol at 18 nearly costs a goal to Tychy, Zigardy is reactive on Frank. After some chances for both sides, Herning closes the period on power play following a tough charge by Maxim Kartoshkin on the board. Danish team plays very well the superiority at the begin of second period and opens the score with Daniel Nielsen, well assisted by Granath. Tychy immediately reacts with a great chance for Vitek at 23 - the shot of Czech forward passes inches from the post – and finds the goal one minute later, Nielsen rebounds on Rzeszutko and Kolarz is the quickest to tap in the open cage. Right after the goal Herning passes two minutes literally groggy, saved by a great intervention of Pisar at 30 and by an incredible mistake by Komorski, missing the puck alone in front of the goalie. At 26:18 Bartosz Ciura finds a beautiful goal at with a precise one-timer from the blue for the deserved advantage of Poles. Tychy continues controlling the game building another chances in the middle of period, the most important with Kogut and Vitek, in both cases Nielsen manage to keep Herning in the game.

Kyle Essery deflects the puck on Zigardy in the first chance of last period after 5 minutes; after a save by Nielsen on Bryk is again Zigardy to work denying the score to Sinisalo, after a classy solo of Finnish forward. Herning pressure decrease after the initial assault, allowing Tychy to control the game without problems until minute 57 when Zigardy has to use all his skill to solve a mess situation in front of the cage laying on the puck. Coach Simioni pulls the goalie in the last minute for a desperate assault but the Polish fort resists until the siren, earning three capital points in the race for the silver.

Both teams shows they can compete for the victory: Tychy once again prove to be a solid team, hard to be beaten and a possible surprise along the tournament. Herning, instead, played very well until Poles’ first goal, then the team literally “melted” for 10 minutes, the decisive part of the game

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